


The Curse

by storyplease



Category: Greek Mythology
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyplease/pseuds/storyplease
Summary: There is a stillness in the aftermath of trauma.There are questions, from within and from around you.But when everyone freezes at the sight of your face,Can you truly ever reach closure, or are you simply waiting for a death that hasn't yet found you?





	

She woke, as always, to the high, sweet sound of birds calling from a distance as they drifted through the sky and out into the radiant dawn.  The silence, save the soft hiss of the surf on the distant beach, was nearly complete.

She shuffled sleepily from her bedroom, mentally noting that her room was getting a bit messy.  But, seeing as no one ever visited her chambers, at least not since the Incident, she found it fairly easy to push aside the little voice in the back of her head that told her that it was probably a good idea to straighten things up sometimes soon, if only so it would be easier to find a given item when she needed it.

As she glanced in the mirror, she noted that her hair was wild again today.  There was really nothing to do with it, so she just left it as it was, focusing more on her face as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes

‘Ugh.  I look like hell,’ she thought bitterly.  

She’d looked like hell every single day since It had happened.  She’d tried to explain, but no one believed her, especially those in power.  She’d been asked why she had allowed herself to be alone with him.  Why she’d allowed herself to look “good.”  She was as good as damned in their book, as guilty as the man who had violated her body and sullied her soul.

Well, she wasn’t looking good anymore.  And she was well and truly alone.

After the Incident, she was supposed to try and live a normal life.  Everyone just expected her to go back to the way things had been before.  Yet, whenever she tried to have a conversation with others, they’d freeze the moment they saw her coming, that sick look of fear on their face when they realized she might try and talk about...It...with them.  

She’d gotten used to being ignored.  And after all that had happened, she was still being inundated by people- mostly men- who seemed to think that because of what had happened, that she was somehow open for business.  They pursued her relentlessly but she shut them down with almost uncontrollable outbursts of anger, detailing exactly what sort of men she thought they were.

They began to call her a monster.  She couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes anymore, it was too painful to hear the whispers and the rumors about her that were circulated by the people she had thought she loved and trusted, people who she thought loved and trusted her.

So she’d moved to this island to protect herself as much as to keep herself from hurting everyone else.  Well, not really moved.  And the island didn’t really belong to her or anything like that.  She’d taken a few possessions, set herself out on a boat and drifted aimlessly in the sea, hoping it would take her where she needed to go, or that she’d be ended at last even though she didn’t want to take an active hand against her own life.

There was an old, stone temple on the island.  It had been abandoned, overgrown with tangled weeds and covered with lichen.  But there was a calm sort of purpose in cleaning it all out by hand, bit by bit.  She slept on the sand at first, watching each star come out in the inky blanket of night.  She pulled small, bitter roots and chewed them to sate the hunger in her belly, even though she longed for the roasted pig and the handmade flat bread baked with the clear, flat indentations of her mother’s worn fingers as she rolled out her love into sustenance.  Still, she lived.

As the time passed, she became intimately knowledgeable of each stone in the temple, each tree in the forest, her hands caressing them until they almost glistened.  The trees bore her fruits as she cared for them quietly.  They did not ask questions or accuse her of misdeeds.  They did not care about her curse.  And for the first time since the Incident, she felt a quiet joy beating at her breast.

It was then, after many years of solitude, that the men began to come.  At first, she had thought it was a mistake.  Perhaps someone had been shipwrecked.  She watched from the shadows of the temple, shy from lack of human contact.  They brought spears, shields, as though prepared for war.  She was terrified.  Did they know that she was there?

One at a time, they came, defiling her garden as one pissed a dark yellow stream at the root of the central apple tree, the other carving letters into its virgin trunk with a large knife.  Yet another pulled small fruits from the tree, pocketing them with no remorse whatsoever at his theft.

Her rage boiled inside of her belly and she hissed as her anger poured like steam from her lips.  She rose from her hiding place and shouted at them.  When they saw her, they readied their spears for the kill, but they froze when they saw the expression of rage on her face.

She told them to go away, but they held their position.  She threw stones at them, but they did not react in the least.  Eventually, she gave up, leaving them to their silent vigil.

Soon, women would come.  Smelling of familiar oils, anointed for worship.  They brought food to the dais at the entrance to the temple and left after saying reverent prayers.  She was too afraid to speak to them, after all, they were unspoiled and unsullied.  Unlike her.

Still more men came, and they too stood watch in her garden, after a time.  Some ran from her and escaped, which she found humorous as they had sought her out in the first place, but most stayed and she wondered at their tenacity.

She walked among them sometimes, speaking to them in soft whispers.  They would not tell her their names, so she named each one herself.  They were her confidants who listened to her.  They did not shrink from her gaze, her touch.  She sang to them as she tended to her garden, and she was content once more.

It was many years later, when she’d become complacent in the life she had led that she met the boy with winged shoes.  He’d caught her unawares, silently stalking into her chambers where she’d never taken guests before.  He brought this strange, metallic circle with him, a shield perhaps, and she growled in annoyance when he’d shone it in her face.  She wasn’t a morning person, after all.

When she tried to face him, he looked away, as though he couldn’t bear to look upon her, and she felt an old pain on the wound of her heart, reminding her of It so long ago.

She rushed towards him, trying to push him backwards and away from her, when she felt the sting of his sword against her throat.  She knew then that she was lost.

And as she died, choking wretchedly on her blood, she wondered if the ever-watchful men in the garden would miss her.


End file.
